Enewsletter

Requests and News

National Day of High School Leafleting

Want to be a local Vegan Outreach contact?

We often receive email asking for information in a specific area.
These queries include meetings, demonstrations, shopping and restaurants,
etc. If you or your group would like to be a contact in your area,
please email us with
the contact information. We will create a new web page with the list
of email addresses and web sites listed by region.

Website Revisions

If you've been a regular browser of our website, you might have
noticed some changes recently. Mostly, the Vegan
Starter Pack has been revised and expanded, although new information
is being added throughout as we have the chance. Feel free to pass
along feedback and/or suggestions!

I wrote you some time ago and asked for
your advice on being a healthy vegan in a cafeteria environment.
I just wanted to say that your advice is paying off big. I think
my metabolism is a fast one and lack of dairy makes it all the
faster, the olive oil has helped so so much. Thanks so much for
caring enough to email a person you don't even know and give them
thoughtful advice. It really reinforces my whole vegan decision.AW, 6/13/02

Knowing the health hazards of saturated fats in meat, dairy, and
eggs, many vegans extrapolate this information to condemn all fat.
However, not all fat is bad – quite the contrary. As Walter Willett,
the leading nutritional epidemiologist in the country, writes
in an interview:

What is a common mistake people make when they are trying to
eat a healthier diet?

"Getting rid of all of the fat in their diets. The USDA has
promoted the strategy, but it can be really dangerous. Not all
fats are bad and, in fact, some should be required in any diet.
Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in foods such as
nuts, avocados, fish, olives, and most oils help lower bad
cholesterol levels without affecting good cholesterol
levels.

"People also tend to replace fat in their diets with foods
high in sugar or refined carbohydrates. A lot of people think that
a plain bagel with jam can be a healthy thing to eat in the morning,
but actually that is one of the unhealthiest duos you can eat because
it has a high glycemic load. Youd be better off with scrambled
eggs cooked in corn oil or a whole-grain cereal."

Feedback

This is just
a small donation to the group that has given me so much (info.,
support, materials). Keep up the good work. More donations to come,
as I get money in. Thanks again, you guys are the best organization
out there for animals today.JS, Tucson, AZ, 7/20/02

I just got my Vegan Starter Packet and Why
Vegans in the mail...awesome info! I have begun distributing
the pamphlets and talking to people. Keep up the great work!SH, Columbia, SC, 7/20/02

We just passed out 800 free vegan lunches
with a Vegetarian Living in each one. It was great success.DT, Seattle, WA, 7/20/02

Building Bridges?

Matt Ball

From the previous Taco Bell-triggered "Setting
Priorities" article, as well as the E
Magazine articles regarding vegetarianism, follow-up discussions
have occurred concerning the relative importance of alliances with
other organizations.

I think one of the reasons the progressive community is generally
less than receptive when it comes to nonhuman animals is that the
animal rights movement broadly continues to do things that needlessly
alienate progressives.

Message and Tactics

There are two aspects to this – the message on which we focus,
and the tactics we use to get this message heard. In their issue
devoted to vegetarianism, one E Magazinearticle,
under the subheading, "Forward in All Directions," concludes:
"But if the disparate movements galvanized around a single,
easy-to-understand message of vegetarianism for health and concern
for the planet...". Clearly, the message isn't "forward
in all directions." Rather: Appeal to people's self-interest.
Don't bring up factory farms, slaughterhouses, or animal cruelty.

As discussed elsewhere,
there are many
reasons why encouraging people's selfishness is not the way to
create fundamental change for a better world.

Tactics are another issue, however. The member quoted above continued:

Some animal advocacy groups would have people send campaign contributions
to arch-conservative Republicans like Senator Rob Smith because
of how he votes on our narrow issue. No wonder the gay rights movement
doesn't embrace us.

Other activists are opposed to supporting campaigns which attempt
to improve worker safety in processing plants. As long as people
are treated as commodities, animals will be treated as commodities.
It's like when I hear anti-vivisection activists saying we should
experiment on prisoners instead. No wonder the human rights movement
doesn't embrace us.

Meanwhile other groups use sex, even pornography, to "sell"
their message. No wonder the feminist movement doesn't embrace
us! As long as we objectify women, we will objectify animals. As
long as we treat women like meat, we will treat [animals] like
meat.

Maybe if we recognized our ideological connections and discontinued
engaging in such acts, progressives would be less likely to dismiss
us as we have so often dismissed them. I think we should consistently
seek out the higher moral ground. (And Taco Bell is pretty damn
slimy.)

Of course, we should strive to be respectful of other concerns because:
1) we advocate respectfulness, and 2) when vegans alienate people,
it hurts the animals.

Efficacy and Offensiveness

That being said, in order to be heard above the cacophony of voices
screaming for public attention, sometimes we need to push the envelope
to be an effective voice for the animals. It is inevitable that anything
successful in reaching the public is going to be upsetting to at
least some people. We can never know for sure if the new people
who are reached offset those who are offended, but we have to take
both groups into consideration – not just the latter.

For example, the McDeath campaign, organized by Peta, handed out
UnHappy Meals to children at McDonalds. It was criticized for how
it would affect children. These are legitimate concerns, of course,
but they were not enough, IMO, to have canceled the campaign. It
is a tradeoff worth making – upset parents and children for the
advances made.

Specific to Vegan Outreach, everything we have ever published has
upset people – Why Vegan
first and foremost. Each article in the Vegan
Advocacy Booklet has been denounced by multiple persons.

This
is not to deny the validity of the views of those who are upset.
However, instead of attacking the messenger, it might be best to
realize that, in almost all cases, their efforts are motivated by
a heartfelt desire to make the animals' case as efficiently and effectively
as possible. These efforts can't adhere to everyone's political agenda
(and this is true in my case as well, even regarding some of Vegan
Outreach's efforts). But I believe the suffering in factory
farms and slaughterhouses
has to be addressed right now, instead of after society has
adopted all other progressive causes.

Some might not share these priorities. But we shouldn't spend our
limited time and resources attacking those trying to speak for the
animals. Rather, we should work hard to develop other campaigns that
are optimally effective at exposing the animals' plight. The animals
deserve all our focus and efforts.

History and Bridges

The feedback continued:

The history of social justice movements in the U.S. is replete
with examples of racist unions, abolitionists who thought women
weren't exactly people, suffragettes who didn't want poor women
voting, etc etc. I'm interested in ways we can as a movement move
ahead without grounding ourselves in prejudice, without compromising
other social justice goals to forward ours.

The latter goal is noble, and I am certain many activists and organizations
would be open to campaigns that can optimally speak for the animals
while meeting these criteria. However, I think the former history
lesson is the more important point. Should other social movements
have waited for purity? Should the Union army only have had those
with no prejudice fighting at Gettysburg? Should the civil rights
movement have refused to support relatively progressive legislation
during the Johnson administration in order to protest Vietnam?

Specific to our efforts: should Vegan Outreach promote veganism,
or small-community local farm socialist handcrafted veganic living?
Should we only accept money from and send booklets for distribution
to members who fulfill all these requirements? Given our fundamental
goal – to prevent animal suffering and promote animal liberation
– I don't believe so.

I certainly don't want to alienate anyone. But it is most
important to be active in today's society on behalf of the animals
as effectively as possible. If, for example, someone chooses to ignore
what goes on in factory farms because Why Vegan mentions Taco
Bell, I am not confident that they were truly willing to consider
a non-speciesist
view of the world. In a society where one in four people eat
fast food once a day, I will not ignore the importance of convenience
just to avoid allegedly giving an anti-Taco Bell person an excuse
to continue to eat animals.

Given this, I have to accept that the argument cuts both ways. I
can't expect other groups with different fundamental goals to adopt
and promote any other agenda. Because of the possibility of some
common ideas, these other groups may be fertile grounds for
reaching new people. Successful outreach is desirable when possible,
and offending others should be avoided when possible. But we must
remain focused on the main issue: the immense suffering of
the animals. I don't think that the animals are best served
by spending an inordinate amount of our limited resources on trying
to build certain bridges. I believe we are ethically required to
work based on our best estimate of what the payoff of our efforts
will be, not on what it should be.

Vegan Outreach is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the suffering of farmed animals by promoting informed, ethical eating.